‘At least Jason Young got his new life,’ she said, munching on the fresh gum. ‘I’m glad for him.’
‘As far as you can with his kind, I quite took to him,’ Dawes said.
Stephanie smiled. ‘Me too. He may have form as long as my arm, but with no parents, no stability, what chance has he had?’
‘There speaks a mum,’ Georgia said lightly, watching the eye contact between Dawes and Stephanie.
‘Oh, Young isn’t fundamentally bad. Reilly is, though, and I think I hate him more for what he tried to do to Jason.’
‘You do think like a mother,’ Georgia teased. She looked across at Dawes for support. ‘We cynical singles just see Young’s scholarship as a small hope that it’ll keep him out of the overcrowded prison system for a year or two.’
‘Is that all sorted? Jason Young’s change of identity?’ Dawes asked Stephanie.
Stephanie nodded. ‘He is now officially Laurence Dunning. He starts life as a scholarship student at Sylvia Young’s Dance Academy in two weeks.’
‘And we’ll be keeping tabs on him too,’ Georgia added.
Stephanie’s gum cracked. The sound was as sharp as a cap in a child’s gun. Georgia could feel one of her migraines brewing.
‘I’ll be surprised if he sees the inside of a cell again,’ Stephanie said. ‘He so nearly lost his chance, and he knows it. I think he’ll give it a good shot.’ She turned to Georgia. ‘Every kid deserves a chance. You must agree with that.’
Georgia felt her insides turn, and a familiar sense of burning in her heart. Thanks to the sex predator that damp, dark evening on Clapham Common, she had been denied the chance to mother her own child. That was the reason she had joined the force in the first place – to do her bit to stop other impressionable fifteen-year-olds having their life stolen by someone who would never know the pain he caused. She wanted more from the force now though: these days she wanted to see justice done for all victims. But that was where it began, and the young ones still struck a particular chord with her.
‘It’s Alysha that worries me,’ she said. ‘She’s obviously lying about having sex with Reilly. She’s kept him out of jail, and she has no idea what a big mistake that is. We can’t even get her into care because her father is still around. He’s a drunk, and hardly ever there, but Social Services won’t intervene. What kind of future does she have?’
‘She’ll survive,’ Dawes said. He looked away. ‘It’s not our concern anyway, that’s not what we do. Our job is to uphold the law. Social work is someone else’s job.’
Georgia and Stephanie exchanged a long glance.
‘With all due respect, sir,’ Stephanie said, ‘you’ve made it very clear where you stood from the first moment on this case – how much you wanted Reilly. And now you’re not happy because we didn’t put him away, even though we got a result. If that’s not personal, I don’t know what is.’
Dawes face reddened. ‘Stuart Reilly thinks he’s above the law,’ he snapped. ‘Reilly ordered Luanne Akhter to kill two women, as an initiation into his Brotherhood gang. That makes him responsible for murder, and he’s walked free.’
Georgia sighed heavily. ‘We’re going round in circles here.’
‘He runs the gang, so he says who joins it.’ Dawes lifted a hand. ‘OK, we can’t prove it. But there’s a verbal statement from Luanne, and the tattoo to back it up. It should be worth pursuing him just for that.’
‘Not a chance.’ Georgia shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t even get to court. His bent brief would claim she had the tattoo done herself, and Reilly knew nothing about it.’
‘But we know different!’
The file on Stephanie’s lap slid to the floor, and papers spilled everywhere. Georgia bent to help her gather them up. ‘Knowing and proving are two different things,’ she said.
‘Without some hard evidence, the DCI won’t let us take it any further.’
Dawes picked up the file. ‘You better believe I want that bastard,’ he said handing it back to Stephanie.
‘You’ll have to get past his bent brief then.’
‘You know what?’ Stephanie pushed her bottom back on to the edge of the desk. ‘Something tells me there’s more going on here than we’re seeing.’
There was a second’s silence, then Dawes said, ‘He gives naive young girls drugs and puts them on the streets.’
‘Plenty of drug pushers do that, and a lot of girls go wrong as a result,’ Georgia agreed.
‘Jason Young did it too,’ Stephanie pointed out. ‘OK, he regrets it now, but in a way, you can’t blame him. They grow up on those estates, with no one to teach them right from wrong. Maybe we should be addressing that. The crime’s just the result, not the cause.’
‘But Reilly didn’t grow up on an estate,’ Dawes told her. ‘He lies about that too. He had two parents – a normal family. He’s a bully, plain and simple. You’ve seen what he’s like with his animals.’ He clenched his fist, and his face began to flush again. ‘The serious crime unit want him behind bars, and I was brought on to this case to help to make that happen.’ He paused. ‘And I’ve failed. I’ve studied him for years. I really thought I had him this time. He killed his own mother, did you know that?’
Both shook their heads.
‘But no one can prove it.’ Dawes looked at Stephanie. ‘You’re right. It is personal. I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. How much do you know about me?’
‘Enough,’ Georgia said. ‘I know your father was a top dog at Scotland Yard.’
Stephanie looked at her in surprise. Normally they shared what they knew. She hadn’t passed this on because the DCI had only told her this morning, with a warning that it wasn’t for station gossip.
‘But nothing about my sister?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘She was a model. Talented and beautiful,’ he said quietly. ‘She became addicted to drugs, and was put on the game to pay her debts to her dealer. We got her into rehab, and it worked for a while, but she went back on the stuff, and back on the game.’ He turned away and looked unseeingly at the window. ‘She died of an overdose of dodgy heroin.’ He spoke as if each syllable brought acid with it. His jaw worked, and he paused for a beat before adding, ‘I know she got it from Reilly, but I can’t prove it.’
His voice was clear and controlled. ‘So yes, it’s personal. I won’t rest until he’s rotting somewhere very unpleasant.’
Georgia swallowed a lump in her own throat, surprised at how emotional she felt. Normally she allowed nothing to get to her, but suddenly she could smell the dirt and feel the pain from all those years ago. When the memory of that ordeal caught her unawares, she could taste the vomit as if it had happened yesterday.
She understood only too well how Dawes felt. In a way, every crime was personal when someone lurked like that, deep in your subconscious. She wouldn’t recognize her attacker’s face, but she’d know his voice, and certainly she would always know the smell of stale sweat and rancid fat and garlic; and she could never forget the taste of the filthy leaves and earth against her face. She liked to think he had died an agonizing death, but she would never know for sure. If he was alive, she hoped he would be in jail for the rest of his days.
But that was her secret. She would never speak of it to anyone; it was personal. It took Dawes a lot of courage to speak of his own pain, and she deeply sympathized. But she dared not show it.
‘We will get him,’ she said quietly. ‘Be patient.’
‘I’ve been patient for too long.’
‘I’ll be watching every move he makes. The slightest hint that we’ve got something and I’ll be on the phone. That’s a promise.’
‘Thank you.’
Stephanie slipped off the desk. ‘Keep in touch. That’s my mobile on there.’ She handed him her card.
Georgia caught Stephanie’s eye and twinkled at her. She knew Stephanie better than she knew herself sometimes, and Stephanie so wanted to bed David Dawes. She would look forward to the gossip.
Right now Georgia was more concerned for Alysha Akhter. The girl was only twelve, she had been raped, and her sister had just killed herself. Alysha was alone. How would she cope? Social Services wouldn’t take her case up. Dawes’s words echoed in her ear:
Our job is to uphold the law. Social work is someone else’s job
.
Georgia hoped with all her heart that
someone else
would make Alysha their job.
Only time would tell.